Playing alongside acts such as Kaiser Cheifs, Ellie Goulding and Ryan Adams – who has announced his UK tour dates here – the Foo Fighters will return for the closing concert of the Invictus Games at London’s Queen Elizabeth Park on September 14th this year.

The Invictus Games will run from the 10^th to the 14^th and comprise of around 300 competitors from 13 countries which have all fought alongside the UK in recent  military campaigns in honour of sick, wounded or injured Servicemen and women. The games were created by Prince Harry and inspired by the ‘Warrior Games’ in the USA.

The Foo Fighters will close the event by playing their first gig in the UK since September 2012, a long wait for die-hard fans.

Dave Grohl has also seen success with his television show ‘Sonic Highways’ which follows the band around various music studios in the states as they record their new album, which as yet remains untitled, to capture the essence of American music history.

The Foo Fighters will release their new album in November this year, and tickets for the Invictus Games go on sale at 9am on Friday 1^st August for £49. You can purchase tickets on the Invictus Games website here

Being released by Legacy Recordings on the 7^th of October will be Ozzy Osbourne’s biggest solo project to date duly entitled ‘Memoirs of a Madman’, compiling 17 of his biggest known records including ‘Crazy Train’, ‘Flying High Again’ and ‘Miracle Man’ all on double vinyl LP and a two-disc picture disc as well as a standard CD album, with limited edition sets including a personally signed poster from the man himself.

Alongside ‘Memoirs of a Madman’, the artist will release a double DVD version featuring 27 music and ‘making of’ videos as well as unreleased footage of live performances and interviews with the ‘Madman’ himself.

You can pre-order your copy here

This comes with news that Ozzy has become the spotlight of a new campaign ‘The Knighthood of Ozz’, made to promote his knighthood by becoming ‘Sir Ozzy Osbourne’ for his long career dedicated to music. The campaign was started by die-hard fan Helen Maidiotis and has already claimed 19,142 signatures on the petition with only 858 to go. You can keep track here.

Black Sabbath also headlined for the Barclay’s British Summertime Festival this July and are currently touring the world following the release of their album ’13’ last year.

Track List for Memoirs of a Mad Man

Crazy Train
Mr. Crowley
Flying High Again
Over The Mountain
Bark At The Moon
The Ultimate Sin
Miracle Man
No More Tears
Mama, I’m Coming Home
Road To Nowhere
Perry Mason
I Just Want You
Gets Me Through
Dreamer
I Don’t Wanna Stop
Life Won’t Wait
Let Me Hear You Scream

Appearing at the Reading and Leeds festival this year, US born band The Orwells have announced their plans to tour the UK this November which will take them from London to Bristol, Sheffield, Glasgow and Manchester.

The band, fronted by Mario Cuomo and Matt O’Keefe released their debut album in 2012 with Cuomo on vocals, Keefe on guitar and joined by Dominic Corso, Cuomo’s cousin and twins Grant and Henry Brinner. The five met in high school and were noticed by a blogger from Aquarium Drunkard. Having been named the ‘most criminally overlooked artists of 2012’ by MTV the young men graduated from high school early to pursue their music career.

In the UK, The Orwells played on the ‘Later…with Jools Holland’ in November of 2013, and then announced that they would tour alongside Arctic Monkeys at nine of their American shows in January and February 2014.

The band had gained some press recently after dubbing Arctic Monkeys as ‘hip Backstreet Boys’, claiming that the Reading and Leeds headliners were synchronising their lyrics without playing live during their US tour. Alex Turner, the Arctic Monkeys frontman, replied by stating “[The Orwells] should have been out trying to get laid rather than watching us every night” and denies any knowledge of synchronising or dubbing being used during their set list in the US.

The Orwells released their new album ‘Disgraceland’ on June 2^nd and will begin the UK leg of their European tour on the 20^th of November at the London Ballroom. Tickets can be bought from the bands homepage here.

Tour Dates

20th – London, Ballroom

21st -Bristol, Fleece

22nd –  Sheffield, Leadmill

23rd – Glasgow, Stereo

24th – Manchester, Academy.

The TV presenter and famed daughter of Live Aid’s Bob Geldof tragically died on the 7th of April this year, but toxicology reports remained inconclusive until earlier today when a coroner had finally ruled that the 25-year-old socialite died of a heroin overdose.

Peaches Geldof had declared herself free from the intoxicating drug two and a half years ago and has said to have remained clean since. It is therefore believed that her death was due to an overdose after being clean from the drug for a long period of time, relying on the still controversial ‘sister’ drug methadone.

The inquiry into her death appears misleading as the BBC reports that the heroin was ‘likely’ to have caused her death despite original claims that her passing was being treated as ‘non-suspicious but unexplained and sudden.’

The BBC reported that police found 6.9g of heroin in her house as well as several burnt spoons. Her husband, musician Tom Cohen, admitted to the hearing that Peaches had begun to take the drug again around February this year, as well as witnessing her flushing drugs down the toilet. Cohen claimed that he was not aware that Peaches had stashed so much of the drug in their home until the police released their findings, and he realises now that Peaches had been lying about weekly drug tests she was to undergo as part of her rehabilitation.

It was Cohen himself who found Peaches dead in their home in Wrotham, Kent, in scenes which mimicked her mother, Paula Yates, passing in 2000. Police state that the heroin used by Mrs Geldof was 61% pure which soars above the 21% purity usually found on ‘street level’ which has been described as a ‘fatal range’.

As tolerance to heroin is said to decrease rapidly after withdrawal from the drug, it is likely that this may be the main factor in Peaches death, as well as levels of codeine, methadone and morphine. However coroners report it is not likely that Peaches intended on suicide, rather it is a tragic loss due to another easily avoidable overdose of a beloved daughter, wife and mother.

Having released his debut solo album in February 2013, Johnny Marr has announced that his second album entitled ‘Playland’ will be launched in October of this year having been inspired by ‘Homo Ludens’ the influential book written by Dutch historian and cultural theorist Johan Huizinga which translates as ‘Man the Player’ or ‘Playing Man’.

Alongside Doviak, and mixed in New York, ‘Playland’ was remastered in London’s famous Abbey Road by Frank Arkwright who has worked previously with Arcade Fire, New Order, Joy Division, Coldplay, Oasis as well as Marr’s old band The Smiths.
After the disbandment of the Smiths, Marr went on to share a microphone with the legendary Paul McCartney, became a brief member of The Pretenders and The The, then on to forming Electronic with New Order’s Bernard Sumner which produced three albums from 1991 to 1999 with a greatest hits album released in 2006.

Alongside Electronic Marr had become somewhat of a session artist, using his Smiths fame to gain notoriety and collaborating work amongst several bands and artists including Billy Brag, The Pet Shop Boys and Talking Heads which led onto other musical projects and collaborations such as ‘Modest Mouse (2006-2009), 7 Worlds Collide (2001-2009) and more recently having shared his skills and talents with a Wakefield indie group known as The Cribs.

“The album’s main themes are the atmosphere of the city, and the preoccupations of the people who live in them; those preoccupations being consumerism, sex and anxiety, or distraction and transcendence from those things,” says Marr. Having been raised in the Catholic school system Marr expresses that he always felt a need to “find some escape” to break out of a life surrounded by people he didn’t want to be around.

Therefore ‘Playdays’ has an autobiographical feel to it with track five ’25 Hours’ expressing his entrapment as a child and his burning desire to do anything to escape it. Marr also expresses many human affiliations such as “a love affair with a building” when describing the third track on the album ‘Dynamo’ inspired by his ongoing interest in psychogeography.
The news of ‘Playdays’ release arrived in conjunction with his October tour which will see him travel the country from Lincoln, Bexhill, Bournemouth to Glasgow and Leeds.

See below for tour dates:

Lincoln, The Engine Shed – 13th
Southend Cliffs, Pavillion – 14th
Bexhill, De La Warr – 15th
Wolverhampton, Civic Hall – 17th
Cardiff, Great Hall – 18th
Bournemouth, O2 Academy – 20th
Cambridge, Corn Exchange – 21st
London, O2 Academy Brixton – 23rd
Bath, Pavilion – 24th
Manchester, O2 Apollo – 25th
Glasgow, O2 Academy – 27th
Newcastle, O2 Academy – 28th
Leeds, O2 Academy – 29th

Since the launch of her first EP ‘Arrival’ back in 2011, Queen of Hearts has gained widespread support from The Guardian, Times and PopJustice having been described as a ‘self-styled enigma’.

She has gone on to release several EP’s such as ‘Neon/Tears in the Rain’  back in 2012 which hit top five on the iTunes UK electronic charts and number 1 on The Hype Machine. Her single ‘Warrior’ gained her notability in 10 Magazine’s ’10 Faces To Watch’ for 2013 and ‘Neon’ was later to be used in the hit US series Grey’s Anatomy.

Having emerged unannounced once again on June 30th this year with her debut album entitled ‘Cocoon’, the Wiltshire born electro-pop artist has released a music video for her single ‘Queen of Hearts’. The project was collaborated with director Robert Francis Muller.

Visit Queen of Hearts on Facebook here

Still a fresh face on the music scene despite underground notoriety for the last three years, for all those fans of electro-pop, Queen of Hearts is ceratainly the artist to keep your beady eyes on.

Video for ‘Like A Drug':

‘Cocoon’ is now available for streaming on Spotify with track list below:

1. Freestyle
2. Neaon
3. Secret
4. ColourBlind
5. Like A Drug
6. It Isn’t Enough
7. Surrender
8. Warrior
9. Shoot The Bullet
10. Heartbeat
11. Angel
12. Overcome By The Rhythm
13. Suicide
14. Tears In The Rain

Security officers approached Barat and Doherty during their set to warn them that they would be stopped if the crowd did not calm down. After opening with ‘Vertigo’ the band were cut short midway through their second song ‘Boys In The Band’ by security. Doherty addressed the crowd repeating that ‘We can’t carry on if you don’t calm down a bit’ only to be stopped again moments later. The Libertines drummer Gary Powell addressed the crowd and began chanting the riff of The White Stripes ‘Seven Nation Army’.

Later in their set, fans were caught climbing the speaker towers resulting in a third visit from security on stage, at this point only Doherty and Barat were on stage to finish with a duet of ‘France’. Barat and Doherty grew weary of the stoppages and told the crowds that Doherty cannot do a solo with the fan’s climbing the towers, resulting Barat and Doherty not fully completing the song.

At the end of the gig The Libertines reunited on the stage and saluted their audience with Doherty expressing ‘Libertine till I die, Libertine till I die, I know I am, I’m sure I am, Queen’s Park Rangers till I die’. Powell told fans ‘you are amazing and you are all Libertines’ before the now reunited foursome left the Main Stage.

In scenes familiar to last weekend’s Glastonbury lightning incident, news of a technical fault at the Barclaycard theatre has hindered several performances which have been cancelled or rescheduled. Yesterday, Swim Deep and Graham Coxon were pulled due to faults leaving Coxon’s set being cut entirely.

Today it is McBusted headlining but their supporting acts had been cancelled including Lawson and Five. Young Kato, Hollywood Ending and Whetus had all been rescheduled to different stages and the festival organisers have issued an apology stating “We apologies to the fans attending today for any inconvenience and disappointment this may cause”. Neil Young and Tom Jones are still to headline on the 12^th and 13^th, as yet no comment of further cancellations has been announced.

The Official Charts Company today revealed that ‘Ghost Stories’ sold a whopping 168,000 copies in its first week leading to 375,000 copies to date. As a result Coldplay’s sixth studio album had beaten Paolo Nutini’s ‘Caustic Love’ which sold 329,000 copies and Ellie Goulding with ‘Halcyon’ at 275,000 so far this year.

Coldplay have therefore sold 11.1 Million albums in the UK since the millennium when the band released their debut ‘Parachutes’. In fourteen years Cold Play have released sixth studio albums, but it was in 1996 that the band had officially formed. In 1998 Chris Martin and Johnny Buckland released 500 copies of their EP ‘Safety’ but as the vast majority of these were given to friends, family, and to attract the attention of record companies, there were only 50 released to the public which are now known to fetch around more than £2000 on eBay. In nearly twenty years the band have soared to success and with today’s figures it seems they are vastly ubiquitous in the world of popular music.

In the singles list it is Pharrell Williams, despite taking 6th place in the most sold albums, who is still climbing the ladder with his 2013 single ‘Happy’, originally used in the ‘Despicable Me 2’ Soundtrack. This will be the second quarter that ‘Happy’ has remained the most popular single, having only kicked interest in December last year when it was second for the Christmas No.1 spot behind, unsurprisingly, X-Factor Winner Sam Bailey’s ‘Skyscraper’.
His third-million selling UK feat is a heady height for the singer, as he is brushing shoulder to shoulder with the legendary Beatles.

Jess Glynne has also seen success having featured in ‘Rather Be’ with Clean Bandit (no.2), and ‘My Love’ alongside Route 94 (no.6).

The list of Top Ten bestselling albums of 2014 so far is as follows:
1. Coldplay ‘Ghost Stories’ with 375,000 copies.
2. Paolo Nutini ‘Caustic Love’ with 329,000
3. Ellie Goulding ‘Halcyon’ with 275,000
4. Paloma Faith ‘A Perfect Contradiction
5. Sam Smith ‘In the Lonely Hour;
6. Pharrell Williams ‘Girl’
7. Bastille ‘Bad Blood
8. London Grammar ‘If You Wait
9. Beyoncé, ‘Beyoncé
10. Arctic Monkeys, ‘AM’.

Singles List for 2014 so far:
1. Pharrell Williams ‘Happy’
2. Clean Bandit Feat Jess Glynne ‘Rather Be’
3. John Legend ‘All of Me’
4. Pitbull feat Kesha ‘Timber’
5. Mr Probz ‘Waves’
6. Route 94 feat Jess Glynne ‘My Love’
7. Katy Perry feat Juicy J ‘Dark Horse’
8. Sigma ‘Nobody To Love’
9. Kiesza ‘Hideaway’
10. Idina Menzel ‘Hideaway’

Tickets will go on sale Friday July 6^th for what has been dubbed ‘Who Hit’s 50’ as the godfathers of Rock ‘N’ Roll kick off their golden anniversary tour in November this year. Amongst other legendary rock bands such as The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, The Who have grown into antiquity after five decades of deserved fame with relentless hits pulling their music forward from generation to generation. Now their legacy is now believed to be heading towards its climactic end with the two remaining members talking about retirement.

“We are what we are, and extremely good at it, but we’re lucky to be alive and still touring, if I had enough hairs to split I would say that for 13 years since 1964 the Who didn’t really exist, so we are really only 37.” Said Townshend when reminiscing about his history with the band.

Since they grabbed the attention of the teenage youths back in the swinging sixties, The Who have always been iconic and had it not been for the tragic death of Keith Moon in 1978 and the more recent death of bassist John Entwistle in 2002 the four original lads could have rocked their fiftieth together. Now only Daltrey and Townshend to play together with an entourage of touring musicians.

The last album that The Who produced with all original members was their famous ‘Who Are You’ which was released the same year as Moon’s death. After which three more albums were recorded, but the most recent entitled ‘Endless Wire’ being released in 2006,  twenty-four years after ‘It’s Hard’ in 1982.

This pause in music history had a bleak beginning markedly due to the ‘Cincinnati Tragedy’ which occurred on December 3^rd 1979 where 11 fans were crushed during the sound check at the Riverfront Coleseum.  Daltrey took a break from the band to work on his acting career and after the release of ‘It’s Hard’ Townshend fallen into depression whilst dealing with the reality that maybe his legacy was coming to an end, leading to a brief heroin addiction.

After finally playing at the Live Aid concert in 1985 – considered to be their reunion – Kenny Jones had dropped from the band, leaving only Daltrey and Townshend to carry their torch to the finish line.

It is with much sadness that The Who have begun to comment on retirement, but all good things must come to an end. Their legacy will always remain and in no doubt inspire the ears and minds of aspiring musicians to come, but perhaps for the last time ever fans of the world-wide critically acclaimed godfathers of Rock can see them play, as the veterans of a bygone age play their 50^th anniversary tour this winter.

You can buy tickets for the gigs here.

Tour Venues:

Nov 30^th Glasgow SSE Hydro
Dec 2^nd Leeds First Direct Arena
Dec 5^th Nottingham Capital FM Arena
Dec 7^th Birmingham NIA
Dec 9^th Newcastle Metro Arena
Dec 11^th Liverpool Echo Arena
Dec 13^th Manchester Phones 4u Arena
Dec 15^th Cardiff Motorpoint
Dec 17^th London O2

It had been a month of controversy as fans of the famous festival were split between accepting Metallica to headline on the main night. However, last night the heavy metal band from Los Angeles rocked the Pyramid Tent in front of a frenzy of black t-shirt clad fans of all ages.

Arctic Monkeys and Scottish rockers Mogwai were notoriously vocal about their thoughts on the metal band playing at Glastonbury with much criticism being aimed their drummer Lars Ulrich. Mogawi had told NME back on June 6th that the band were ‘unbelievably bad’, simply ‘shite’.Metallica had the last laugh however having issued t-shirts covered in comments the other bands had stated to the press such as ‘SHITE!’ and ‘Metallica At Glastonbury – Whoopee Fucking Doo’ alongside their own ‘Peace, Love and Metal’ t-shirts

.

Metallica paused for 15 minutes with a dramatic tribute to actor Eli Wallach who sadly passed away on June 24th, including scenes from some of his Spaghetti Western movies. The tribute then turned into a retro video of a British Fox hunt in reference to another controversy surrounding lead singer James Hetfield’s relation to bear hunting. The screen screamed the words ‘Are You Ready for Glastallica?’ and the band exploded on with ‘Creeaping Death.’ Hetflied addressed the crowed saying he was proud to represent the heavier side of music, which has been notably underrepresented in the festivals history.

Metallica then warned ‘it’s going to get louder!’ as they blared ‘The Memory Remains’ throwing black beachballs out to the flag flying battalions at the Pyramid Stage

Lars Ulrich then addressed the crowd: “I came down here last night and I’ve walked every corner of this festival, and let me tell you, there is no place like this on this fucking earth. Thank you Michael, thank you Emily, thank you Nick. Metallica loves you and we hope to see you another fucking time!”

Newspapers have described Metallica as having ‘Rocked Glastonbury and Glastonbury rocked them right back.’ It seems, after all the controversy and slating that Metallica had endured, they thoroughly impressed the festival goers and the media. The musical prejudice which loomed around the night was forgotten as the beloved metal stars rocked out, becomming the main event of the festival and perhaps a the musical event of the year alongside the Libertines reunion and Kat Bush playing at the Apollo in London this august.